Weaving Fantasies
by artisticallyunwritten
Summary: He is smiling and she is laughing and this is all some fantasy kind of madness. Because half moons and starlit skies and jokes cracked under dark green trees and it's the fairytales. College AU


**Disclaimer: Teen Wolf isn't mine. **

**Note: This is a piece I wrote for the Stiles/Lydia Fest on tumblr and you should check out their collection because there is some seriously amazing stuff on there. This has already been posted on AO3, which would be why it might sound familiar. **

He can see stars. Except they are not the bright, silver lights sprinkled on a dark enveloping blanket. These ones are blurry and dark and somewhat circular and appear in front of his eyes, making the world a blurred spin. He blinks harder, willing them to disappear, instead they get replaced by a flurry of colours. Orange and red and yellow and dark, _dark_ purple. So he concentrates harder, trying to make sense of the mess around him. Rainbows and heavenly bodies in a perverse sort of wrong. The stars come back and he blinks again to enter a messy palette that is his world.

Suddenly he is yanked by the collar of his shirt and there is another pair of lips on his and it tastes like tobacco and pineapples, except pineapples are not supposed to sting on the buds so sharply and this is suffocating him and there are dark stars in front of his eyes and a mess of all the wrong hues of all the right colours. He pushes the lips away and mumbles something. He intends it to be an apology but isn't sure what comes out because the pathway of his words from his brain to his mouth is hindered by the constant refusal of his senses to work properly.

He moves forward, giving up on his sight and trying to focus on his hearing. There is a constant hammer in his head, if it's his brain or his eardrums, he can't decipher. But it is causing a headache and he doesn't feel so good. His senses are probably on an overdrive, he figures, in an unsuccessful attempt to calm himself, but there is some sort of voice in the back of his head which sounds incredibly like Scott's mom, that tells him that alcohol causes the senses to dull not to go in an overdrive. And the attempt that was previously deemed unsuccessful turns into a punchbag for frustration as he swears it away.

He distantly remembers a chugging competition with Scott, at his frat party awakening but he can't see Scott anywhere, which isn't a surprise because he can't see anything at all anywhere and suddenly, the hammering in his head begins to intensify and the place reeks of sweat and nicotine and alcohol. He _feels _the contents of his stomach swirl and twirl inside. Nausea, he registers somewhere. The headache is blinding, the room is getting much too warm for his comfort and the dark stars are a constant now. He is parched for fresh air, he realizes and somehow locates the door to head out.

He makes his way to the exit with minimum collisions and steps out into the open night sky. He inhales deeply, the air not feeling so foreign to his lungs anymore. The breeze is chilly, which soothes his heated skin and he suddenly feels the hammering in his head fading away. His senses are beginning to come back to him. He wipes the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and rubs it on his jeans. The world starts to come into some sort of focus as if he just fixed the pixels on his life.

He can see the night sky and the right sort of silver stars sprinkled upon it. Full moon, he notices. The colours aren't so bright anymore. There is a grey road in front of him and stretches of green trees after the crossing. The air smells of pine and the only sound is that of the winds roaring. The swirling and twirling in his stomach has calmed down a little. Relaxed, he shuts his eyes and fills his lungs with air again. He exhales. Inhales. Exhales.

Suddenly the exit doors burst open, and a _gong_ goes inside his head. Groaning, he turns around. He sees a figure, hanging on to the handles to stable herself. With wobbly steps, she comes towards him. _She_, he realizes. Her hands are cradling her head and suddenly the roars of the wind are interrupted by complains emitted through groans. Her face is scrunched up in an expression of annoyance and misery. He thinks, he must have looked similar when he had stepped out moments before.

She stumbles and he moves forward to hold her hand. She snaps her head up to look at him. Her eyes are green. That is his first thought. Her eyes are green, the stretch of forests.

"Thanks," she mumbles.

He shrugs in response and lets go of her hand.

She takes in a deep breath. Just like he had done, probably for the same reasons. The wind roars again, ruffling her red hair. Red hair. Green eyes and red hair.

Both of them are bathed in moonlight, suffering through the after effects of alcohol consumption. She stares ahead and he stares ahead. But then he would sometimes sneak a glance at her. Green eyes and red hair and pink flush on fair cheeks. She is technicolour. All the right hues of all the right colours under all the right stars of the galaxies.

And then suddenly she doubles over, and begins making these retching sounds. Contents leaving her body, the wrong way and her hands are on her knees and her hair is covering her face. That is all it takes for the nausea to come back and he throws up, right next to her. And bathed in moonlight, together they empty the alcoholic contents of their stomach right in front of someone's dormitories.

There is something about inebriated girls holding hands with inebriated boys as they try to steady each other while the moonlight envelops them and stars shine above. But nothing brings more promise than your readiness to spew out spiked drinks with her and thinking she looks beautiful even with vomit clinging to the ends of her hair.

* * *

Her head is pounding, and her body registers the need for aspirin, but damn it all to the lowest circle of hell, if she lets it show. She holds her head up, and walks into the library. The hair sticking to her neck is a mild discomfort and her eyes get watery but she rubs at them with newly discovered ferocity. She still has an hour before her Modern History class commences, which is more than enough for her to cross-reference her essay for the Quantum Mechanics course. Her brain screams at the injustice of it all. She clenches her eyes and marches forth.

The march though meets an unwanted barrier in the form of a human body splayed across the floor in one of the lesser visited corridors. The realization, however, comes one kick in the shin too late and the previously unconscious lump of flesh and bones, begins to groan and stir. He turns his face and peeks open an eye to look at her and she immediately recognizes that shade of brown. He tries to sit up straighter, hands clenching his hair as some sort of insane remedy for his obvious hangover induced headache. He winces as he moves and suddenly she is all too aware of the constant thudding in her head as well.

He sits up, groaning a little and relaxes his back against the back of one of the shelves. She recognizes him, the dark disheveled hair and the long limbs with the brown eyes. He is her clearest memory of last night. You don't forget boys who hold your hand on moonlit streets and then help you create puddles of vomit. He squints up at her and she has no idea why she is standing here waiting for his acknowledgement when she can just apologize and be on her way. She proceeds to open her mouth, but he beats her to it.

"Why are you all prim and proper," he begins, his voice groggy, "in a library with a book in your hand?"

She is taken aback by the query. She was expecting some form of recognition from last night or perhaps an admonishment for being a rude wake up call, not some sort of questioning of her motives. "It's ten in the morning," she tells him as if that is self-explanatory.

"Exactly," he nods and then winces at the sudden motion, "so why aren't you hungover?"

She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, shifting her weight on the left foot. "I didn't drink _that_ much," she tells him while her subconscious snorts in derision.

"Right," he says, tapping his foot to an even rhythm, "must be someone else I spewed out my guts with."

So he does remember, she realizes. And she doesn't know _why_ exactly she didn't want to be the only one who remembered last night. Most days, you would want people to forget that you threw up in front of them with contents of your stomach clinging to the ends of your hair. Except this time, she drew some sort of self-comfort from the fact that he remembered her too.

She watches him as he attempts to stand up, while his limbs disagree with the decision. Taking pity on the boy, she extends her hand. His head snaps up to her immediately. The rational part of her brain tells her that this isn't helpful, she is a five foot three and he is definitely much taller, closer to a six foot maybe but before she could retract her hand, he had caught hold of it and is using it as leverage to pull himself up. She uses her other one to support his weight and is hyperaware that the spine of her book must be digging into his knuckles.

Once he is up and steady, he looks at her, "Thanks," he mumbles, much like what she had done last night.

Shrugging in response she retracts her hand.

They stand there, and her eyes are drawn to the way his fingers pick on a scab on his left thumb. The boy is always in motion, she notices. She is feeling feverish but that is mostly the companion to her headache and she traces the straps of her handbag, aware of the aspirin it contains.

"You are hungover," he interrupts her thoughts.

She raises her head to look at him, eyes questioning.

"The book in your hand," he points, "is quantum mechanics. We are standing next to a bookshelf which holds the answers to South East Asian culture. You are in the wrong corridor, which means you weren't concentrating," he concludes. She opens her mouth in an attempt to come up with a false excuse but apparently he is not done with his assessment. "Your cheeks are flushed, you're feverish and," he tilts his head a little to obtain a better view, "your hair is sticking to the nape of your neck, which means you are sweating in an air conditioned hall." He stares at her, she stares right back. "And then of course there are the eyes –"

"Eyes?" she interrupts.

"They are bloodshot," he informs her. "You _are_ hungover," he tells her, "you're just better at hiding it."

Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. He tries to lean back on the bookshelf but apparently miscalculates the distance and stumbles backwards only to crash against it, creating a ruckus, in an otherwise silent library.

She goes from impressed to surprised to amused in a little over a nanosecond.

"Ow," he moans, his palm nursing his victimized shoulder.

"Do you usually go Sherlock on people who wake you up when you're hungover," she asks, "or was it specially for me because I kicked you awake?"

"ADHD," he tells her, "a little dulling of the senses is a relief sometimes." He is still balancing his weight on the previously crashed into bookshelf. She nods in understanding.

Digging into her handbag, she procures the aspirin and offers it to him. He looks up at her with raised eyebrows. "Take it," she tells him, "it will help."

Gingerly, he extends his hand and grabs it. "Won't you need it?" He questions as she straighten her bag in preparation for walking away.

She shakes her head, "I'll probably take a nap." He snorts. "I have an hour before my History class."

"You take Modern History?" he asks perking up. She nods slowly in response. "I guess I'll see you there, then," he says.

She begins to walk away. She is almost at the end of the corridor when she hears his voice, "Stiles Stilinksi." She turns around. His shoulder is leaning against the bookshelf and he is looking expectantly at her. "That's my name," he clarifies.

"Your name is Stiles Stilinski?" she asks him, her tone amused.

"Just call me Stiles." He says, gesturing way too liberally for a man who is hungover.

She waits a beat.

"Lydia," she tells him. His expression tells her he is waiting for her to elaborate so she adds in, "Martin. Lydia Martin."

Stiles nods. "Alright then, Lydia Martin."

There is something about people who give away aspirins before they give away names. And there is something about people who can calculate situations but not distances. But you take refuge in the thought that they don't forget green eyes and long limbs and completely embarrassing moments spent together.

* * *

A quarter cup milk, one teaspoon sugar and a dash of cream. That's how he liked his early morning dose of caffeine. He taps a pen against his right thigh as he lightly blows over his coffee, cooling it down enough to not scald his throat during his wake-up ritual. He glances at the doorway of the little campus-based cafeteria and then stops the tapping long enough to check the time on his wrist watch. 08:54 in the morning. Six minutes till Scott's class ends. In his opinion eight in the morning classes are what happened, when nature decided that Christmas tips the balance of the world on the happy side, and they needed to add in more misery to restore it. Eight in the morning classes are the antonyms to Christmas. When something good happens, you exclaim that Christmas came early. Similarly, when the world punches you in the gut, it's like attending an eight in the morning class. Why does he have such strong opinions on early morning classes, he doesn't know, because incidentally, he doesn't even have an early morning class to vocally complain about.

He continues the tapping.

Cautiously, he brings the coffee to his mouth and lightly takes a sip. His brain immediately registers alarm as the brew stings on the skin of his tongue and leaves behind roughness on the muscle as he rubs it against the roof of his mouth. His eyes water and he tries to cough himself into relief to no avail. This is it, he realizes in panic, he is dying. This is how it will end for him, choking on his morning coffee because he wasn't patient enough to let it cool down. He didn't even tell his dad that he loved him, and he doesn't even know if they will transport his body back home. This is it. It is over. All those dreams and wishes.

And then suddenly, as if the heavens themselves opened up to grant him his dying wish, a perfectly manicured hand offers him a water bottle. Without even sparing his savior a chance he grabs the bottle and gulps down several mouthfuls. Finally feeling his tongue and throat soothe a little, he looks up to see Lydia Martin take the seat in front of him, placing her journal on the table.

"You, me and questionable health. Must it always begin this way?" She seems amused. If there was one instance in his life when Stiles Stilinski was grateful that nobody could hear his inner monologue, it was this. Or perhaps yesterday when he had tilted his chair backwards a little too much. Or perhaps the day before that when he had tripped on the left wing staircase. Or maybe when he had sex for the first time. He had woken up with a sore back and a scraped elbow and then concluded that sex was infinitely over-rated.

"Thanks," he offers as he checks his watch again. 08:55. Five minutes. "Although I do remember unconnected events of nods and waves and acknowledgments." Nobody talks like that; he realizes immediately, nobody even _remotely socialized _talks like that. _Unconnected events of nods and waves and acknowledgments?_

Apparently she feels that too, because she takes a little too long to hide the grin threatening to makes an appearance on his expense, before she replies, "But those can hardly be counted as conversations."

Him, her and questionable health as an opening to conversations. At least until now. Perhaps, they can amend that. Perhaps they can't. Or maybe he is just getting ahead of himself at this point. The tapping against his thigh continues.

"That is twice I have come to your aid in one week, Stilinski," she breaks him out of his chain of thought.

He snorts, "They call my dad, Stilinski," he says, narrowing his eyes for effect, and then hesitates a little before adding, "So I guess we stand at a two to one ratio then."

"Two to one?"

"I helped you once, you twice," he shrugs.

"When did you ever help me?" She straightens her back, crosses her arms over her chest and raises her eyebrow at him. She still has a ghost of a smile, he notices.

"You would have tripped," he says pointing a finger at her, "at that frat party, when we were drunk," he motions with his hands, trying to create a visual of an otherwise extremely blurred memory. "I held your hand."

"You held my hand," she repeats voice lowered, unblinking.

"I held your hand," he confirms. Brown into green and the world in a tailspin.

The time on the clock perched on the left wall reads 08:56. Two minutes into this conversation. Four minutes until Scott comes out.

She is the one to break gaze. That doesn't bother him. He sucks at these staring competitions anyway.

"I held your hand too," her voice is higher now. Higher than before at least. "In the library," she clarifies as a response to his questioning gaze.

"That doesn't count," he retorts immediately, banging his palm on the table. Lydia opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off, "I have a nasty looking bruise on my shoulder to prove that."

Lydia slumps and the tapping on the thigh continues.

"It was a little late," she relents, "but I did offer you my hand eventually."

He taps faster and Lydia's eyes follow the movement.

"Two and a half to one?" she offers, eyes still fixed on the movement of his hands.

But before Stiles could open his mouth to tell her if he agrees with the proposal, they are interrupted by a timid request asking to be excused. They both look up immediately. Tall figure, brown hair, blonde highlights. Jeans and a T-shirt, books clasped in the right hand.

"Malia," Stiles says as a way of greeting, smiling as he cranes his neck a little.

The big round clock in Scott's lecture hall reads 08:57.

Three minutes.

In the cafeteria however, Malia smiles in response to Stiles.

He looks up at her, waiting for any indication as to why the conversation was interrupted. It is a while before he gets his answer.

"I heard you got an A on the economics paper on the macroeconomics theory," Malia begins, Stiles nods encouragingly, puffing his chest a little, "I was wondering if you could help me with mine," she says, bracing both her palms on the table top and leaning down a little, "I didn't do so well."

Trust Stiles Stilinski, he is never petty about such things. Grades, good or bad, he never lets them get to him. But now, for reasons he would later struggle to find, he glances at Lydia. Perhaps, this would validate for her that in spite of his flailing arms, and uncoordinated muscular activity, and completely _totally _daft sentence structures, he was not a complete idiot.

Her eyes, however, are trained on the constant tapping motion on his thigh. He stops. She looks up.

"Wouldn't a TA be better help?" He questions turning his attention back to Malia, and then realizing what that must have sounded like, hurriedly adds, "I am not saying I don't want to help," he gestures emphatically as way of explanation, "I can help, yeah definitely, but I just thought that the TA would be a better option with all those extra notes and yeah." He trails off uselessly, and resumes the tapping, albeit at a faster pace.

Malia lets out a laugh. A kind one. Nineteen years into life, he now knows how to decipher the different categories. And this one was one hundred percent kind. She lays a hand on his shoulder, and softly says, "I think you'd do just fine."

The digital clock on his cell phone reads 08:58.

He looks at Lydia again, who is now turning the pages on her journal, totally unaware of the rather flattering compliment he just received. Denying the tiny, miniscule, little tinge of disappointment in a tiny, miniscule, little corner of his chest, he looks up at Malia again, smiling.

"All the macroeconomic theory?" he questions, slightly dreading the response.

"Oh, no," Malia adds immediately, "Just the Keynsian Theory."

He sighs in relief. Malia is beautiful, and she gives him kind laughs and raises his self-esteem by three hundred and twenty seven notches, but still the idea of pouring over macroeconomic theories for an hour would have had him wary. Not now though. Now he gets self-esteem boosts and the company of a rather pleasant woman smiling at him in exchange for a fairly simple tutoring session of the tax-based explanation of the global economics.

"I get free after my three o'clock class," he begins, as his eyes follow Malia, grabbing hold of the coffee in front of him - _his _coffee in front of him - and bringing it to her lips, she is smiling, still smiling, and there is a voice telling him that he should warn her about the near choking incident that just took place but he watches her as she takes a sip and the smile remains in place as her tongue peeks out to trace the remnants from her lips. She places the coffee back in front of him. "Err," he tries again, gaining back the use of his oral sense, "I'll see you in the library then?" He asks her meekly.

She nods, "Yeah, sure! That will be great." She pats his shoulder, "Thank you so much Stiles, you are a life saver." And with those parting words she saunters off towards the door.

He glances at his wrist watch again. 08:59. Sixty seconds.

Raising his head to look up at Lydia again, he finds her not so engrossed in her journal anymore. Hand cradling her chin, she looks at him and smirks.

"You were being flirted with," she tells him, smirking.

He snorts.

And then when she continues to fix him with the same unwavering amused look, he realizes she is probably serious. He gestures towards the doorway where Malia had just disappeared. "No, no!" he struggles to form words, "She wasn't flirting! No!" No early morning classes, beautiful women who ask him for help, other beautiful women who tell him that aforementioned beautiful women were flirting with him, what parallel universe had he landed himself in? The tapping continues.

Lydia giggles, at his discomfort.

"She wasn't flirting!" he tries to emphasize, "She was just asking for help. She wasn't lying about her grade!"

"I never said she was lying," Lydia shrugs a little, "I am just saying she was flirting. A TA _would_ have been the better option."

"She was flirting?" Stiles asks, narrowing his eyes a little.

Lydia nods.

"Actually flirting?"

Lydia nods again.

"You are not pulling my leg."

Lydia shakes her head.

"Wow."

She laughs. "For a guy who could deduce hangovers from hair sticking to the neck, you really are thick."

"Hey!" he says affronted. "I just," he shrugs, "I was never the popular choice amongst the opposite sex." He says lamely, "Or the same sex." He adds. "Or any sex really." He finishes.

She stares at him for a while.

"I should stop talking now," he says as he hangs his head. The tapping stops.

She laughs again.

His watch beeps. He glances at it.

09.00.

"She was flirting," and with that Lydia walks away.

Stiles watches her leave, and then looks at the coffee in front of him. There is a light pink, lip-shaped stain on the corner of the container. He stares at it for a while. And then promptly turns the container in his hands, and places his mouth on the stain-free plastic and takes a sip.

There is something about silly little countdowns and nervous tapping and lipstick stains. There is something about burnt tongues and timely saviours. But caught amongst them are a boy too oblivious trying to impress and a girl too drawn to nervous little quirks brimming with tickled curiosity.

* * *

She shifts her shoulder to make herself more comfortable against the rough bark of the old oak tree that her back rests on. He sits beside her. Stiles. Brains and smarts and deductions and a complete lack of bodily coordination. She smiles at the thought as she looks in the distance. Field of green. A small lake in the distance. Sky the darkest of blues decorated with small tufts of grey clouds as they roam over the silver bright lights. Half a moon. Three months. Conversations that no longer require circumstances involving questionable health. One solid friendship. And nightly escapades under the same old oak tree.

"His name was Jackson," she tells him. Eyes still staring in the distance. "We were sixteen. And in love."

There is movement next to her, and she feels his gaze burning the nape of her neck, but that isn't enough to convince her to shift her gaze. She continues to stare ahead, across the green stretch.

Stiles snorts, the breath hits the exposed skin of her neck. "So, what happened? He left you at the altar?"

She feels the urge to roll her eyes and to laugh at the same time. He does that to her, this boy. She bites her lower lip instead. And on it, she still feels the aftertaste of her peppermint toothpaste. She breathes in the cool air around them and then turning to face him, she fixes him with a steady, passive, expressionless face.

Making sure that her tone is as solid as her expressions, she answers him. "Yes."

He gawks and her face almost crumbles. She wants to laugh. So much. She had never wanted to laugh like this in her life. It isn't his expression, or his queries or his stupid _stupid,_ sarcastic remarks. It's him. It's the old oak tree, with the uncomfortable bark. It's the stars and the half moon. It's the cool breeze and the peppermint. It's him and her and her and him. It's this connection.

She doesn't laugh. She holds it in. And he still gawks at her.

"You decided to get married at _sixteen_?" He asks her, his voice panicky. "_Sixteen_? Three years ago from today, _sixteen?"_ He is rambling and his hands are still showing the three fingers he stuck out in sheer exasperation and her chest is hurting from all the laughter and light she is holding in but it's worth it because _look at him._ "Is that even legal? Someone decided to get married to you at _sixteen?"_

And then she laughs. So he stops talking and he looks at her and he shakes his head a little, perhaps at his own naivety, perhaps at her laughing face and he is smiling now. He is smiling and she is laughing and this is all some fantasy kind of madness. Because half moons and starlit skies and jokes cracked under dark green trees and it's the fairytales.

"You were pulling my leg," he says. And then he sighs and shakes his head again. She watches him run his long fingers through his mess of dark locks and bites on her lip to hold in her laughter. Her chest is still shaking and she lets out little giggles at uneven intervals but it's all better now. She inhales. She giggles. She inhales again. The starlight, the cool breeze and him.

She shifts again, so that they touch. Right from their shoulder, down to their wrists. And then she, again, turns to gaze ahead and he still continues to look at her. The remnants of her laughter still cling to her lips and his eyes are still searching for answers. So he asks again.

"What happened, though? With this guy?"

She doesn't know why he is interested. And she doesn't know why she wants to delve into her past and fulfill his curiosity. But this boy, next to her, he makes her feel indestructible. It had been three months and she is, for the first time in nineteen years of her life, holding on to something more real than anything she had ever held onto. Maybe everybody has that person in their lives, she ponders, who believes in them. In their dark and their ugly and their very _very _real. Who will put their life in your palms and then close your fingers around it. Who will put their faith in you and tell you that they can search the lands and the seas and the heavens to prove to you that what you feel is real. And when you finally falter, someone who will sing over and over and over the plans that they have for you.

And at nineteen, she realizes that the stuff of the books can also be the stuff of realities. It doesn't have to be a prince in shining armour. It doesn't have to be a true love's kiss. It just has to be flailing hands and sarcastic remarks and warm brown liquid depths of their eyes while they hold you in a friendship. Which is just that. And when you have got a companion like that, romances seem grossly overrated.

So she tells him. She delves into the part of her past that is marred with bad decisions and she opens up her chest to him in a way that she has never opened to anybody else.

"Sometimes," she begins in a soft voice, "you find yourself attracted to things that cause you pain."

She looks at him and he looks right back.

"You are sixteen and this boy, this insanely popular boy whom everybody wants, he smiles at you and you think that every love song is beginning to make sense."

She smiles reminiscently. It's a smile laced with bitterness and sorrow and a little redemption.

"And?" He whispers. His warm breath ghosting over her cool cheek.

She snorts. "And you're sixteen. The love songs are not supposed to make sense."

They are quiet for a while, listening to the rustle of the leaves in the breeze. She picks at the blades of grass next to her hips and begins again.

"So, I dumbed myself down. Because that is how they show it to you in the movies don't they? Popular boy, captain of the school team and his ditzy, fawning girlfriend." She shakes her head, "I shouldn't have done that."

She is almost scared to look up at him now, afraid of watching her image shatter in his eyes. So she doesn't. She doesn't look up at him.

"He treated me like his arm candy, because I gave him the validation to treat me like his arm candy," she continued, "Somewhere between my parent's divorce and my dad moving away, I started to believe he was the only one who understood me. So I alienated everybody else. Again, I shouldn't have done that."

She feels something heavy press down on her chest and her throat feels like it's collapsing so it is difficult to breathe. "And then, he broke up with me."

"Just like that?" He whispers.

"Just like that," she replies, "And I was left tumbling down the tunnel of bad decisions."

Suddenly she feels a weight on her shoulders, and it is only when the hair on his head tickles her face that she realizes that he has rested his head on her. Then he silently intertwines his fingers with hers.

He doesn't say anything. He gently strokes her thumb with his own and she lets him. She looks at his fingers at work.

Leaves and stars and oak and half-moon and cool breeze. And him and her.

"When I had sex for the first time, my back hurt for weeks," he says.

There is a moment of silence. And then she comes tumbling down and laughs and he laughs and her stomach hurts and eyes water and she holds onto him for dear life but she laughs and she breathes in the stardust and the friendship and the faith he has in her.

There is something about nightly escapades and uncontrollable laughter and horrors of the past. And there is something about a companion ready to hold your hand and your secrets with the same kind of faith. There is something about the familiarity of old trees and dark skies. But you find redemption in all the wrong choices that you made right.

* * *

"Malia kissed me." He tells her, as he turns his head to look at her lying in Scott's bed across the, very small, room.

She is looking up at the ceiling and he takes her in. Black dress that reaches her knees, her long lashes curling at the ends, there is a knowing smile gracing her lips, her cheeks are flushed because of the warmth in the weather as they head into more humid days and after five and a half months of calling each other friends, he now knows that her hair isn't red. It is strawberry blonde. And right now, it is creating a halo around her face.

"And?" she asks.

"I kissed her back." He tells her, turning his head to look upwards at the ceiling too. He likes Malia, he realizes as he watches the fan spin. He likes kissing her and holding her hand and making her smile. So he tells Lydia that, "I liked it. I like her."

"Asked her out, then?"

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

"_She _asked _me._" He says a little hesitantly.

"Oh," Lydia waits for a while and then asks, "When?"

"Last night."

"No, you idiot," he _feels_ her roll his eyes at him, "I mean when do you guys plan to go out?"

"Saturday." He tells her shortly.

"Day after tomorrow?" she asks.

"No, Saturday of the same month next year," he quips. He hears her sigh. "Of course day after tomorrow, when else?"

He hears the mattress shift and turns to look at her. She is lying on her side now, facing him, elbow supporting her body weight. Hair falling down in waves behind her back, black fabric gracing her knees and long legs stretched out. "Got any plans?" There is a twinkle in her eye, and her lips are holding in a suggestive smile.

He sits up and throws his pillow at her, effectively hitting her face. "It's the first date," he tells her.

Her voice is muffled under the pillow but he hears her anyway, "I was about to suggest a movie." She says.

He snorts, shakes his head and wipes the drop of sweat slipping down the side of his face. "Which movie," he asks her then.

"A Series of Unfortunate Events," she says. He snaps his head up to look at her only in time to catch her rolling her eyes.

"Careful, with the eyes," he says immediately, "you might drop them."

She glares at him.

"Whatever they are showing nowadays," she tells him shortly. And then huffs.

Stiles smiles. This girl is insane. Absolutely insane. And impossible. And he holds onto her. Because he has got Scott and he has got Malia. But he has also got her. And Scott is his best friend and Malia is obviously his girlfriend. But Lydia is _someone._ Someone he can't place his finger on yet. Someone you spend entire nights with under the old oak tree and share cheap alcohol with and watch them laugh and watch them read and pass them notes in class with silly little jokes scribbled on them.

If someone told Stiles to consider his relationship with Lydia in the romantic spectrum he would probably shake his head really viciously. Because this isn't romantic. What he has with Malia is romantic. Stolen kisses and flirting and butterflies in stomach and firecrackers behind closed lids. What he has with Lydia isn't romantic. But it is _something_ and he likes this something. He wants to keep this something.

He doesn't want to kiss Lydia, he wants to watch her read.

"Where _is _Scott, though?" she asks suddenly breaking him out of his reverie, getting up and swinging her legs off the side of the bed.

"Kira." Stiles says shortly, running his hand through his hair. Stiles was happy for him. He really was. He had Kira. After Scott had lost Allison to the accident two years ago this was really the first time he had allowed himself to be romantically vulnerable. And Stiles isn't some self-proclaimed love expert but it is about time his friend gets a chance to move on in life.

"Wow," he looks up at the sound of her, "I feel really _really _single." She is looking at him, eyebrows furrowed and biting the insides of her lips. "It's new."

Stiles snorts, yet again, "You get used to it," he tells her leaning down and placing his elbows on his knees. He watches as Lydia's eyes follow the movement. He pauses a moment before adding, "And don't let anybody tell you otherwise, remember that your right hand is your best friend."

He smirks as he watches her process what he had said, and then his pillow comes back flying towards him and hits him square in the nose. He smothers his laugh into it and then summons his best looking puppy dog face. "What was that for?" He asks her innocently.

She huffs.

"I used to battle mythical creatures online using my right hand," he tells her then, gesturing in the air with the very same limb.

She snorts, "'Battling mythical creatures', is that what we call it now?"

"We always called battling mythical creatures, 'battling mythical creatures,'" he shrugs, looking as innocent as he knows he isn't.

She pauses a while.

"Did you really used to battle mythical creatures online?" she asks, her voice disbelieving.

"Yeah," he shrugs, because that much is true. "Did you know that silver being fatal on werewolves is just an urban myth?"

"Silly me," she smirks, "here I was thinking that _werewolves _were an urban myth."

There is something about being in the grey area of undefined relationships and strawberry blonde shade of hair. There is something about cracking crude double entendres and stifling laughs and bodies covered in sheen of sweat and battling online mythical creatures. But you find peace in the knowledge that you are holding onto something precious.

* * *

Two months into humid weathers, nature tends to take pity on you and open up the skies. So it did. The skies opened up. And in the night sky as bluish white streaks of lightning tore it apart, it rained torrents on to green fields, old oak trees and the figures standing underneath.

She felt rage, blind seething rage because this is not how this was supposed to go. As the raindrops poured down and drenched her, she glares at him, eyes heavy with fire.

He glares right back. Raindrops clinging onto his long lashes and his shirt sticking to his chest, sleeves folded halfway up his forearms.

She has no idea how they had ended here. He was what soothed her and irritated her and made her laugh and made her giddy. He never made her feel such anger. She was boiling inside and heaving with emotion.

"You," Lydia began, voice dangerously low, "do not fight my battles, Stiles," she tells him, jabbing her pointer into his chest. "Nobody has given you the right to do that." She screams. "Nobody!"

He grabs her pointer as it makes a particularly sharp jab. He looks at her and she looks right back. Eyes cold and hard as stone. She doesn't care what Aiden had said about her. This isn't the first time she had been at the end of some sexist remark by some sexist jerk who thought the female species of the human race owed him something. And she is perfectly fine with that, because she has learnt how to handle this. She has always fought her own battles. So she looks up at the bruise forming at the right corner of his lower lip, not with gratitude or appreciation. She looks at it with fury and anger and frustration.

It hadn't been a fight. It had been a skirmish. A small one at that. But whatever it had been, it was enough to send Lydia reeling. _Because how dare he._

"Did you even hear what he said about you?" Stiles yells at her over the boom of thunder around them.

"Yes, yes I did," she spits out, wringing her hand free from his grasp, "And apparently you thought that it was the right opportunity to play hero."

"I did not think –"

"So then what were you thinking?" She screams at him. The loudest scream yet. "I am not some damsel in distress, alright? I know how to deal with my own problems!"

"I didn't think you were some damsel –"

"So what possessed you to do that?" She hisses. "I haven't given you the right to take up my battles for me Stiles, and I hope you understand that."

"I understand –"

"Well, clearly –"

"No! Listen to me!" He roars, and suddenly he has grabbed her by her shoulders and she loses her balance, getting pulled towards him, "I did what I did because that is how it works –"

"No it doesn't!" She screams in his face.

"Yes it does!" He screams back. "Because that is what friends do Lydia! They fight each other's battles!"

That has her staggered for a moment. Because, how is she supposed to know. She never had friends ready to fight her battles for her. And he was Stiles – loyal to the boot Stiles – and maybe he thinks this is how it works but it doesn't. It doesn't. Lydia fights her own demons, she struggles on her own and she finds her ways on her own. This is how Lydia functions. This is how she has always functioned.

So with his hands on her shoulders, their clothes sticking to their bodies, she hears the constant tattoo as the rain drops pelt the earth and winds roar in her ears. She looks at Stiles, his eyes a shade of brown so dark, it burns on her memory and she feels herself heave, he is heaving too, she notices. In. Out. In. Out.

"Nobody fights my battles." She tells him. Her voice is low. But it carries an air of finality. She smells in the petrichor and holds his gaze. He is staring at her, with the passions of dark lightning struck skies and she feels a storm brewing in her chest, threatening to make her explode. But she holds his gaze.

And then his shoulders sag, and Lydia feels something heavy drop down her stomach but she doesn't flinch. She doesn't let it show.

"Lydia," Stiles begins again, his voice defeated this time. "I didn't want to intrude. That was never –" He sighs, "That was never my intention." He stares at her long and hard. "I just thought, as a friend," he closes his eyes and she watches a raindrop makes it way down his lash, across his cheek and drop down his chin. "As a friend, it was my place to help you out."

"It wasn't your place," she tells him, staring right into the shades of brown. "And I didn't need help."

Stiles let his hands drop.

She turns to walk away.

She is aware of him staring at her, but suddenly the water feels cold on her skin and she feels a shiver run up her spine so she continues her brisk walk, refusing to look back. And her heart is a hurricane of emotion. Her anger is irrational. She is aware of that. He had tried to do the right thing. She is aware of that too. And most days, she would have just talked to the guy and let it go.

But she hadn't. Because she had felt rage, that she wasn't supposed to feel. But it was this boy; he made her laugh louder than anybody else. Perhaps he made her angrier than anybody else too. She is almost into the entrance of her dormitories, and the wind still howls and rain still pelts. But whatever is happening in her chest is what is scaring her because is this really supposed to happen?

She likes to solve her own problems. She doesn't like anybody intervening. But then again, how would she know if she likes it or not. Nobody had_actually_ intervened earlier, have they? She continues thinking as she walks without even really noticing where her footsteps fall. What Stiles had done, it had scared her. And then it had made her so angry. So very angry. And she could have controlled it. She would have. But then he had stood there, holding her and trying to convince her that what he did was right. What he did was what should have been done. But he was wrong. Wrong, so very wrong. Because she never liked it that way. And she was telling him wasn't she? So he _could_ just accept it. But whenever did Stiles Stilinski quietly accepted anything? No, he had to create a fuss out of it. Go against everything someone tells him to do. The boy probably never went through a rebellious teenage phase because the society expected him to go through a rebellious teenage phase.

Coming out of her daze, Lydia looked up to find that her feet had led her to her room, so she stands there a while, staring at it. She could still hear the thunder shaking the skies.

She takes out her keys, unlocks it and goes inside. Then she throws her drenched self on her bed and lets out a dry sob.

There is something about heated fights under torrential rainfalls. There is something about boys who get bruised in their silly little heroics and girls who have iron running through their hearts, allowing them to fight their own battles. There is something about loyalty and heavy hearts and irrational anger. But you hope and pray that you could mend what is broken.

* * *

Remember when he thought, that eight o'clock classes sucked? Well, eleven o'clock classes weren't ranked very high on his list either. Eleven o'clock classes after long "adult" discussions about where the relationship is headed with his girlfriend is what will happen when you go to the deepest darkest circle of hell.

He sits there, head bowed and continues to draw little spirals at the corner of his page. His grip on his pencil – _yes he uses a pencil to take notes_– is tight enough that it hurts his knuckles. He continues the spirals.

He is aware of the strawberry blonde curtain two rows ahead of him. He is always aware of the strawberry blonde curtain. They used to sit together. Sixteen days ago, he would have been passing her silly little notes with silly little jokes and making her stifle her giggles. Now he sits here hurting his knuckles, almost ripping the paper and listening to Jared drone about how Germany was the core of all evils that happened after 1914.

And to be very honest, he is seething. Boiling inside. So he continues to draw the spirals. Darker and harder and damaging the page of his notebook. His girlfriend is not sure where their relationship is headed. Which, according to him, is a stupid argument. Because they are freshmen at college, two and a half months into a relationship, where _could_ their relationship be headed other than scheduled classes?

He draws the spirals. His knuckles are turning white.

And then there is Lydia. And for the life of him, he could not understand what went wrong and damn him and everything in his five meter radius if he apologizes. Because he won't. Because it wasn't his fault. And she should meet up with Malia to learn something about adult conversations and where they are needed. They hadn't talked properly in sixteen days. _Sixteen days_. And Stiles feels his heart grow heavy because really, how big was his mistake to screw things up so badly? The bruise on his lower lip only causes a dull ache when touched. Stiles runs his tongue over it and winces.

He draws the spirals. He hurts his fingers. He tears the paper. He draws the spirals.

He could have talked to Scott. But he doesn't want to bother him, with things finally going his way and him finally being so happy with Kira.

Spirals. Everything is spiraling out of control. Spirals.

He looks up to see Lydia, head bowed. Which is unusual because Lydia always has something to add into these class discussions. And she usually leaves classes with held high after an hour of solid reasoning and perfect arguments and the successful control over her laughter while he murmurs idiotic comments next to her. But she is sitting passive.

And then something snaps, he looks up to see the nib of his pencil broken and a hole torn through three pages. And then he hears Jared say something along the lines of Kaiser Willhelm being jealous of his very British aunt in the Buckingham Palace and louder than he intends to Stiles blurts out, "Because of course, France and Britain had solid reasons behind joining the war."

He feels the balance of the class shift, as eyes turn away from Jared and look towards him. He looks up, and meets her eyes. Lydia's. She quickly turns her head. So then he looks at the professor, who is looking at him, expecting him to add something more to his previous outburst. He begins bouncing his knee.

"Blaming Germany, for the First World War would not be fair," he begins, "because they did what every other country did. They honoured their treaties."

And he really wants this to be the end of his class participation for the rest of the semester, when Jared snorts. And really, Stiles was not in the mood to be at the receiving end of condescending gestures. He tightened his grip on the broken pencil as he bounced his knee and through clenched teeth he proceeded, "Germany was as much at fault as France for jumping into the war."

"So," he hears Jared say, "you're saying that years of historical data is inaccurate because –"

"Yes," Stiles cuts in. It's rude, he knows. But it gives him some perverse sort of pleasure to watch Jared open and close his mouth like a fish.

"How can you even –"

"Because it's true."

"But why would –"

"Because the fun thing about being victorious is," Stiles says, leaning back against his seat, "you get to tell the story."

There is silence for a while.

"You can't overlook established facts because you would like to assume bias in the narration." It's her voice. She spoke. The girl with strawberry blonde hair who had remained silent for the past sixteen days. And now he wasn't relaxed against the back-rest anymore. His shoulders are tensed, the pencil is in a death grip and the bouncing began faster than ever.

"You are saying there is no bias in history?" He asks, trying to sound much more confident than he felt. This was Lydia. She knew her history better than anybody. She could screw him sideways in this argument.

"I never said that," she says, "I am saying that what were are talking about ground solid facts."

"Germany wasn't blamed because of ground solid facts," he argues, "Germany got blamed because it was the biggest threat in the area."

"Germany jumped into this war, before it was required of them to." She bites back.

"Their allies lost the Archduke!" Stiles exclaims, arms splayed out in exasperation, "That is a call for war."

"But it was Austria's call." Lydia tells him.

She isn't looking at him. Her head is still bowed. She isn't even looking upwards. And that spikes something in him.

"Germany wasn't the one to call the war, Austria did." Stiles argues, and before anybody could actually have the chance to jump right in, he adds, "Because their Archduke got killed. Which is what people use as solid justification for calls of war."

"Austria only decided to call for war because they knew they had German backing –"

"Yes!" he exclaims as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, "Because Germany was an ally! That is what allies do!"

"It was not Germany's war to fight," her shoulders are tensed and her voice has a higher pitch than normal.

"It was Austria's war to fight, so by extension it was Germany's war to fight."

"These were not bar fights," she says, her voice leveled compared to his mad gestures and heavy exclamations, "You don't jump into it because your friend is getting beat up. These were international affairs, you take precautions before calling out for wars specially when technology has taken leaps and bounds."

The class is so quiet, Stiles finally understands what pin drop silence means. And before even processing what is coming out his mouth, he hears himself saying, "So you are saying, that countries jumping into each other's fights is different than people jumping into each other's fights. Because people jumping into a friend's fight makes sense since that is what friends do?"

It sounds stupid to his ears. And petty. Stupid and petty. Because people are probably sniggering now. What has he even said? There is a class full of people and he has mixed his brain with his heart and that is always a bad idea. You never do that, because that is useless and unnecessary, except he had gone ahead and done it. And Lydia isn't saying anything, her shoulders are frigid and she isn't moving at all.

One beat. Two.

And then she finally breaks the silence, "That is not the point of this argument."

"Is there even a point to this argument?" Stiles mutters, and before matters can slip out of hands, "Would you deny that France jumping into the war made any more sense than Germany jumping into it."

"Germany had plans to attack France," she says. And finally, there is some sort of expression in her voice. She is arguing, now. Really arguing.

"Because they saw France mobilize," He says right back, because he was right. If there was one thing he would take from this day, it's this. This debate. Argument. Adult discussion. Screaming match. Whatever this is.

"France couldn't have just sit idle when Russia was already arming itself."

"So France did what Germany did –"

"No, France mobilized after the war was called, Germany urged its ally to make the call –"

"Because their Archduke was killed –" His skin was becoming overheated, he could feel the blood roaring in his ears.

"Germany was being overly aggressive –"

"Britain was the one with the biggest navy in the world. Colonies across the globe. The biggest weapon industry and Germany was being aggr –" His kness bounced. Faster.

"Britain was diplomatic, Germany wasn't."

"What part of taking over other nations is diplomatic?"

"That was a race for colonies, completely different top –"

And then the bell rang signaling the end of lecture time. Stiles sags his shoulder in relief, because Lydia would have crushed him. He knows she would have. But he had argued. And he made it personal. And he had felt the world spin out of control and he felt Lydia. Her voice. Her words. Her arguments that were flung his way. He debated with her and argued with her and made it all very personal. And, Stiles slowly realized, he got his high.

There is something about bad days and jumping into arguments and making fools out of yourselves in lecture halls full of people. There is something about bouncing knees and rigid shoulders and punctured pages and broken pencils. There is something about badly thought out arguments and petty matters burning like poison at the back of your throat. But you feel your heart thrum against your ribcage because she finally talked to you.

* * *

It is seven in the morning. _Seven._ God forbid, she never willingly wakes up at an hour this horrendous. Except she hasn't woken up. She has _stayed up_ till an hour this horrendous. And right now she finds herself in the corridors of the boys' dormitories, refusing to look apologetic about it to people gawking at her. So she holds her head high, rolls her eyes and continues walking towards him room. _Stiles' room. _Because he can't do what he did yesterday in class and get away with it.

Seventeen days of not talking to him. Trust her, they had been difficult. They had been terrible. She hadn't laughed loudly at pathetically lame jokes or sat under that old oak tree or grinned at flailing arms or rolled her eyes at dripping sarcasm in seventeen days and it was getting to her. She had no idea what she had expected after that row all those days ago. But outbursts in history class, in front of fifty other people had not been part of her expectations. She sighed in exasperation at the general mess of it all. She wanted to sort it out, she really did. But she was never the one to take first steps in sorting through messes. Because well, she never had such messes. But now she does, and clearly the best way he had figured to do this was in a history class. And that is the worst case scenario that there can possibly be and she has to save this before he ruins it even further. Because she wants to save it. For the very first time in three years, Lydia was walking _towards_ something. Not running away from it.

She stops in front of his door, and knocks.

_Again._

Loudly this time.

Until finally, the door opens to reveal Scott.

He looks at her bleary eyed.

"Go away," he murmurs sleepily, "I don't have class for another hour." He is about to shut the door in her face, when she puts her hand on it to stop him.

"Is Stiles inside?" she asks haughtily. Lydia Martin might have been there to sort out issues, but Lydia Martin doesn't have to be kind about it.

"It's seven in the morning," Scott tells her as if she has missed the point.

"I need to talk to him." She replies, adamant.

"Lydia, it's _seven_ in the morning." Scott almost sobs.

"I am aware." She feels bad for the boy. Scott was almost a friend. And here he was stuck in the crossfire, with only perhaps forty five more minutes of sleep to salvage. She pushes her guilt aside. She will apologize to him later. So she looks at him, square in the eye and perhaps that is message enough for him to open the door wider and allow her to step in.

She locates Stiles' bed in semi darkness and once finding his body lying upon it, unconscious to the world, breathing evenly, Lydia feels a surge of jealousy. She hadn't slept. All night. Tossing and turning in her bed. And here he was, peaceful. So like any other adult would, Lydia pokes him in the gut.

"Stiles," she hisses. Keeping her volume low for Scott's benefit. She feels him move behind her seating himself on his own bed. Stiles, however, is dead to the world.

"Stiles!" she pokes him in the face this time, managing to keep her voice down. When Stiles still doesn't move, she looks towards Scott for help.

The poor boy is sitting on his bed, hands on either side of his hips, given up on sleep. "He is a heavy sleeper," he tells her, unhelpfully.

Since Scott clearly doesn't want to sleep anymore, and Stiles is showing no signs of life, Lydia grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. Hard. "Stiles!" she says loudly.

Finally, the mass of flesh and bones move, even letting out a tiny groan. He opens one bleary eye, takes a look at Lydia and turns his head on the opposite side to get some peace.

Partly offended at being brushed away like that, and partly amused at the antics of a sleepy Stiles, Lydia slaps him on the shoulder urging him to get up.

He finally turns around and looks at her. And perhaps that is when he truly realizes his surroundings; because suddenly he sits up, wide awake. "Lydia!" he exclaims, his voice groggy. "God, what time is it?" he turns to pick up his cell phone to check the time. He squints at the screen before he finally turns back to her. "It's seven in the morning," he exclaims, clearly annoyed at being woken up so early. "Why are you here at seven in the morning?"

He runs his hand through his hair, frustrated and sleepy and probably surprised.

"Austria got broken into pieces and Germany was blamed for everything that went wrong." She says, disregarding all his previous questions and gestures.

"_What?_" Stiles asks, clearly too sleepy to make any sense of this. He is sitting on his bed. She is crouching in front of him. And over her head he looks at Scott for any sort of hints as to what this meant. Scott for his part only shrugs, clueless. So he looks back at her to find her still looking at him, her expression kind. The one of surrender. "_What?_" he asks again.

"If Germany had just let Austria fight its own war, there would have been less damage to both of them," she says again, simply.

And behind her she hears Scott let out a dry sob because clearly, historical analogies at seven in the morning, is hardly fair to anyone. But she continues to stare at Stiles, waiting for him to process this. To understand it.

"But it wasn't a bar fight," he murmurs. "Those were countries who should have dealt with things diplomatically," he says, and then quietly adds, "We are just you and me."

"But Germany did what any other country did and got butchered."

"Germany went ahead and waged another one not even twenty years later," he reminds her.

"And then got broken into pieces," her voice is soft.

He looks at her, his expression gentle and she looks at him mirroring it. And there is something passing between them, she can feel it and she can only hope he feels it too because she wants to fix this. Whatever it is. And this is so insane because the fight was so petty. So meaningless. Nothing to stretch out for so long. But they were idiots with egos the size of Europe and pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle that just refuse to fit together.

There is a soft thump behind her, and she assumes that it's probably Scott collapsing into his bed. But she stops herself from using this as an excuse to turn her eyes away. Looking at him is difficult, but she _wants_ to look at him.

"Germany mended its pieces and joined the European Union years later," he says.

"Germany had to go through Cold War and unification for that to happen," She counters.

"Lydia," he begins this time, "Are we talking about us or are we talking about history, because this analogy stopped making sense to me three sentences ago."

She giggles. And he looks at her, with the most precious of expressions and smiles alongside. They are back where they were. Perhaps they were always where they were. They were just too stubborn to acknowledge that.

"I don't need anybody's support." She tells him this time, joining him on his bed, sitting beside him. "I can solve my own problems."

"I don't want to _support_," he says defensively, and then quietly murmurs, "I just want to stand next to you while you solve them."

"You shouldn't have done what you did."

"I got angry."

"It was my problem to deal with."

"Alright," he relents, "next time give him a solid right hook."

"I promise."

He laughs. Probably imagining tiny five foot three inch Lydia, socking it to the very athletic looking Aiden. She imagines it too and laughs alongside.

It is a moment before the quiet laughter subsides, and she twists her hand to take his into hers. He looks up. She is smiling at him. She missed this, but she always knew that. Right now she realizes just how _much_ she really missed this. And it is a lot. A whole lot.

"I was waiting for you," he breaks the silence, "last night, near the tree."

His look is reproachful, so she strokes her thumb over his thumb, just the way he does it to her, and makes another promise. "I'll show up tonight," she tells him.

There is silence for another few minutes, before he tells her, "Malia broke up with me."

This is perhaps the first thing that morning which takes her by surprise. Because weren't the two of them getting along perfectly? She doesn't say anything, quietly urging him to continue.

"She thought we weren't sure where this was going," he tells her. She still doesn't say anything so with his tone definitely higher he adds, "We're freshmen in college, where are things even supposed to go?"

His tone is exasperated. And she laughs. "You aren't supposed to laugh at my break-up," he complains.

"I am not laughing at your break up," she tells him.

"I think I heard you laugh."

"I was laughing at you," she giggles.

"Wow, thank you," he rolls his eyes, "Dashes of cold water on the self-esteem at seven in the morning, just how I like it."

"What else do you expect me to do?" She is still holding his hand, except now he is stroking her thumb, like he always used to do and she is looking at him smiling and he is looking at her trying to hide one.

"Get me drunk."

There is something about early morning wake-up calls and a best friend complaining about losing sleep. There is something about analogies that don't make sense and coming to realizations that someone is ready to stand by you. There is something about growing up and realizing you can't play hero all the time. But you smile for the rest of the day because his thumb stroke yours again.

* * *

Ninety seven brilliant days, and eight long exam papers later, Freshmen year ends and they are scheduled to head home soon but they are them and everything is giddy and everything is freedom. He had kept on talking about two months of not seeing each other, which both of them knew was pulling the dramatics because they had technology and a million and one ways to connect. But two months of being in separate cities and they had decided to run away together one night.

Eleven in the night, that once, they didn't sit beneath the old oak tree. They had held hands and escaped the college premises together. And while everybody celebrated the end of school year they had ran on streets wild and laughing and completely, truly insane.

They held hands; they held hands all the time. And this felt like escaping and he knows that is a mad thought because what are they escaping from really? But then he looks at her and her strawberry blonde hair is let loose and her periwinkle blue dress flows over her frame and she is laughing and her eyes are shining so they look like forests after a fresh shower and her cheeks are flushed and she is bathed in moonlight. And he is struck by the thought he was struck with ages ago; she is technicolour. All of her is insane and impossible and brilliant and exquisite.

So he pulls her with him, and his side is hurting from all the laughing and all the running. It is a full moon again he notices. There are little shops on the streets, there are kids eating cotton candy and adults giving them disproving looks. And she is running and he is running with her and they are holding hands. And then there is just him and just her.

With a sudden jolt, he realizes he doesn't know where they are and they are probably lost and he looks at her and she looks at him back and she knows it too. He just knows that she knows it too. Because he can see it in her eyes. And then she laughs again, and he laughs alongside because they are lost and it will be fine because they've got each other, don't they?

She pulls him into a dark alley, and he is deranged to be pulled alongside and they really shouldn't have consumed cheap alcohol from cheap pubs because then you end up in questionable places at inappropriate times. Dark, unknown alleys during the night are not a good idea. And he knows this. And he knows that she knows this. But they are free and drunk and it's all real and it's all magnificent.

It smells of whatever it is that dark alleys are supposed to smell like. And the moonlight provides the only source of illumination and she is glowing, resting against the grimy wall, and he has his hands on either side of her and they are looking at each other. Glowing and laughing. It tastes like stardust and insanity and cheap alcohol and each other. His skin is heated, and the breeze calms him and she is so close, he can see the freckles on her nose. And dear Lord, he never really knew how adorable freckles were until now.

But he isn't thinking straight. There is alcohol in his system. But more than that, there is Lydia in his system. And she is his high. And she is what makes his thought runs wild like the waves of the ocean during a storm. And they are crashing. Constantly crashing against the shoreline. And he knows he will get pulled under. Whatever it is that Lydia causes inside of him, it will envelop him. And he knows it before it happens.

The stars shine upon them and the moon is full, just like the night that they had first met. And _this_ drunk, doesn't give them headaches, _this_drunk gives them giggles. And they are giggling. God, _he_ is giggling. And he can't remember the last time he had giggled.

She is still backed up against the wall and he still has both his hands on either side of her and then she stops laughing and she looks at him.

"I will fall in love with the person who tells me that I have a majestic, chaotic soul," she says.

"Lydia," he breathes, drunk and hazy and giddy and mad, "you have a majestic, chaotic soul."

She laughs and then her lips are on his and he gets pulled under.

There is something about thoughts that can't make perfect sense. There is something about running away from the world as you know it. There is something about unfamiliar, dangerous places and being mindlessly, carelessly drunk. But you taste her lips for the very first time and you feel nebulae burn in your capillaries.

* * *

He has a flight to catch tomorrow morning, and she waits for him under the old, familiar oak tree.

They had kissed last night. She knew. They were drunk and giddy and they had kissed. Over and over and over. She can still taste him on her lips. And he leaves tomorrow morning. So she waits for him, here.

She sees him jogging towards her, his silhouette. And then he is close enough for her to see. Her eyes roam over him. Brown eyes, curling lashes, long flailing limbs, his hands – God, she loves his hands – Long fingers and veins running up his forearms and the constant movement. She watches him and his socks, she notices, are mismatched. She snorts.

He runs up to her and they are under the shade of the tree and he is smiling and she is smiling and he is looking at her and she is looking at him. He rubs his hand on the nape of his neck, and looks at her shyly.

"I leave tomorrow," he says.

"I know," she replies, crossing her hands behind her back, and smiling, eyes gleaming in anticipation, biting her lower lip.

He smiles shyly again and she chuckles lightly. He meets her eyes. "I am going to kiss you," he tells her.

"I know," she says again.

So he leans in, and then his lips are on hers again. And it is nothing like last night. It isn't drunk and urgent and messy. It is what first kisses are supposed to be like, shy and timid and dreaming of a forever. She kisses him back, and hisses when she feels him lightly nip on her lower lip. And now she is smiling and the kissing him business is getting difficult because he is smiling too and their lips can't seem to coordinate. And then her chest is shaking with laughter.

"Shut up," he tells her in between his own chortles, trying to kiss her again properly. But it doesn't stop. Because forevers and infinities and first kisses. The stuff of fairytales. But it is happening right now. To her. To them. And her body is too small to contain all that happiness, and she is transferring it to him where their lips meet and maybe his body is too small for it too because it's escaping all over the place. Surrounding them and engulfing them.

He breaks away. "I get to call you my girlfriend?" he asks, nervously.

"Is that a question?" she teases.

He takes her hand in his and pulls her close so that their chests are pressed together, and then bends down to whisper in her ear, "That depends on your reply," his breath ghosts over her skin, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps, and then he lightly bites down on her lobe and she groans.

"Yes," she whispers into the night.

There is something about meeting someone in completely inappropriate situations and putting your faith in them. There is something about laughing loudly and getting into petty little arguments. There is something about getting drunk and running away and coming back to the same old familiar tree. But you weave together fantasies because it's him and it's you and maybe this is what love songs mean.

**Reviews would make me extremely happy, leave some?**

**[Edit: I copied this document from my AO3 account, but the line breaks didn't carry through for some reason. And I hadn't noticed that when I uploaded this here. A guest reviewer pointed this out to me, (thank you so much!). Basically, what I am trying to say is, I fixed it and I hope it's clearer reading now!]**


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